Letting Go

Within the Cursillo context, this would be titled “Let go and let God” instead of “Letting Go.” It seems this is one of the core messages I’m hearing right now. The previous post on Forgiveness is on aspect of letting go – forgiving involves facing reality and letting go of parts of it. When I have been successful at forgiving, I’ve had to accept the hurt and then let go of it – to look beyond it. Forgiving is necessary – because then I am no longer forced to expend the emotional energy required to remain in a state of anger. Hanging on to that is so draining that I get to a place of no energy at all.

Five years ago our home burned – to rebuild required taking the structure down to bare studs and bare concrete (the house is on a slab); The cats escaped – no one else was home so nobody was hurt. We even managed to salvage most of the picture albums which, by the grace of God were in closed cabinets, down low in the other end of the house from the start of the fire. It was alarmingly easy to “let go” – because it was “just stuff.” And, I didn’t have to do the hard work of deciding to let go as I do when I opt to clean out the closets. It was like forgiving in some respects – in the current incarnation of the house a few walls are moved, and the light switches are in different places. At times, when I’m on auto-pilot, I still reach for a light switch in the old location… just like sometimes I revert to old emotional patterns and old fears and old anger. But, now, I can stop, laugh at myself and embrace the new location of the light switch. And so, in this process of “letting go” and forgiving, there are times when I have to step back, laugh at my shortcoming and embrace the new.